Apologies, as you can tell I am not an expert...
My question arose during a thought experiment regarding that elusive Dark Matter/Energy and the rate at which the universe should be expanding. It then occurred to me that some portion of that mysterious Dark Matter/Energy may be a consequence of these Virtual Particles in some way?
Microscopic easily becomes macroscopic when there's a few thousand/million/billion/etc powers of 10 going on, so I hear...
I'd love it to know if this is already a consideration or not, providing it is even worth considering in the first place?
Thank you for indulging my ignorant mind :)
Answer
There is no evidence or data in hand to suggest that the virtual particle pair creation-and-annihilation process has any connection with dark matter or dark energy. Their existence is so fleeting that they don't stick around long enough to experience gravity or exert it on other objects.
From what is known about dark matter and dark energy, they on the other hand have lifetimes at least as long as the lifetime of the whole universe, since the effects they have had on galaxy and galaxy cluster and supercluster formation can be seen in those objects, which are very very old.
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